White House: Recovery takes time

Despite the recent spate of troubling economic news -- unemployment notched up to 9.1% in May -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, said he did not expect the president to retool his message, that recovery takes time.

In his daily briefing, Carney said many analysts “still believe we’ll have steady economic growth during the second half of this year.” Carney also reiterated the idea that the President has steered the country out of its most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression by creating two million jobs over the past 15 months.

“We’re not remotely sanguine about the economy," he said. "We are still in a hole that we need to continue to dig out of caused by this recession."

Earlier Thursday, Bloomberg reported the Obama administration has been discussing a temporary cut in the payroll taxes that businesses pay on wages. Carney called the report “conflated” and reiterated that the payroll tax for employees was enacted less than six months ago. Carney also said there were a lot of ideas that are currently being “bandied about.” Obama has talked about his desire to make permanent a research and development tax credit and tax credits that would create more jobs.

This comes as Vice President Joe Biden and top lawmakers from both parties met for a sixth time to discuss ways to increase the country’s legal borrowing limit which expires on August 2nd. Republicans are seeking spending cuts that would offset an increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit, but Democrats have expressed opposition to the Republicans' plan to cut Medicare.